Fdd's overnight brief

Israel

President Biden and his counterparts in Egypt and Qatar are preparing to make a last-ditch proposal, if needed, to bridge the differences between Israel and Hamas to reach a cease-fire agreement in Gaza and ensure the release of Hamas’s hostages. – Wall Street Journal

More than a dozen people were killed in Israeli strikes on two schools housing displaced people in Gaza City on Thursday, Palestinian officials said, the latest in a series of attacks on education centers Israel says are being used by Hamas to plan its operations. – Washington Post

Israel is girding for widely anticipated retaliatory attacks by Iran and Hezbollah, telling its people this week to stock up on food and water in fortified safe rooms, while hospitals prepare to move patients to underground wards and search-and-rescue teams position themselves in major cities. – New York Times

United Airlines said on Thursday it has suspended its flights to Tel Aviv for the foreseeable future and plans to resume them when it is safe for its customers and crew. – Reuters

Israel on Thursday revoked the accreditation of eight Norwegian diplomats working as representatives to the Palestinian Authority, drawing a sharp response from Norway’s foreign minister who called it “an extreme act”. – Reuters

Israel’s Western allies have condemned remarks by the country’s far-right finance minister who suggested that the starvation of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million Palestinians “might be just and moral” until hostages captured in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel are returned home. – Associated Press

His only apology was for a social media post blaming his own security chiefs for failing to foil the assault. […] “Apologize?” he asks back. “Of course, of course. I am sorry, deeply, that something like this happened. And you always look back and you say, Could we have done things that would have prevented it?” – Time

The security cabinet convened Thursday night in Tel Aviv, as the country continued to brace for a potential attack by the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon. – Times of Israel

The Israel Defense Forces on Friday morning confirmed launching a new ground operation in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, following what it said was “intelligence indicating the presence of terrorists and terror infrastructure in the area.” – Times of Israel

A group of international retired generals and senior military officers have told the International Criminal Court that its chief prosecutor Karim Khan’s claims that Israel deliberately starved Palestinians and intentionally targeted civilians during the current war in Gaza lack evidence and do not stand up to scrutiny. – Times of Israel

An IDF officer from the Nahal Reconnaissance unit was severely injured during combat in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said on Friday morning. The officer was evacuated to a hospital to receive medical treatment. His family has been notified. – Arutz Sheva

The Ramat Negev Regional Council, which spans nearly a fifth of Israel’s territory, prepares to accommodate tens of thousands of evacuees in case of an escalation on the northern border. The plan includes the construction of a tent city and hundreds of beds and mattresses that have already been purchased. – Ynet

Israeli officials on Thursday said they were not optimistic that a cease-fire and hostage release deal could be agreed despite efforts by the United States to secure one. – Ynet

Hal Brands writes: Don’t bet on it. Many Israeli intelligence and military leaders do want a short-term cease fire, if only to free some hostages and gain a breather after 10 months of war. But from an Israeli perspective, a “de-escalation” that allowsTehran and its allies to keep building up their capabilities, to prepare for the next round of fighting, isn’t such a good peace after all. Nearly a year after October 7, Israel seems to be getting ready for a sharper phase of this multi-front regional conflict — even if an all-out clash is avoided this time. – Bloomberg

Brigadier General (res.) Amir Avivi writes: Humans crave certainty and are willing to pay for it. This is the reason why insurance companies exist or why there is a premium on high-risk loans. But in war, one cannot buy insurance policies. There is no certainty on the battlefield in any case. Therefore, even choosing a passive method of operation is a high-risk choice that provides no certainty.  Accordingly, I see only one good course of action on the northern border: Act first. As General George Patton is reputed to have said: “In case of doubt, attack!” – Ynet

Russia & Ukraine

Ukrainian troops battled for a third day Thursday in Russia’s Kursk region, occupying villages and part of a town, in what has become the Western-backed military’s largest cross-border incursion since the Kremlin’s invasion in 2022. – Washington Post

Ukraine’s forces destroyed all 27 Russian attack drones launched overnight, Ukraine’s Air Force chief said on Friday. – Reuters

Russia evacuated people on Friday from parts of its western region of Lipetsk after a “massive attack” by Ukrainian drones caused explosions, disrupted power supply and wounded nine people, regional governor Igor Artamonov said. – Reuters

Ukraine’s foreign ministry said on Thursday Niger’s decision to cut diplomatic ties with Kyiv was “regrettable” and that Kyiv saw the move as based on groundless and untrue allegations. – Reuters

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff said in an interview published on Thursday that a second Kyiv-led peace summit should not be treated as the start of negotiations with Russia. – Reuters

The International Atomic Energy Agency is aware of developments around Russia’s Kursk nuclear plant and is monitoring the situation, Russian state news agency RIA reported on Thursday. – Reuters

Russian prosecutors on Thursday asked for a 15-year sentence in the treason trial of a Russian-American woman, who has pleaded guilty, Russian news agencies reported. – Associated Press 

Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and prime minister who currently serves as deputy chair of the country’s Security Council, gave his reaction to the raid in a lengthy Telegram post on Thursday morning. – Newsweek

The Defense Department on Thursday said Ukraine’s attack into a region of Russia this week is not escalatory and is consistent with U.S. policy. Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters that Ukraine is “taking action to protect themselves” in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops entered Tuesday night and are continuing to fight, putting enormous pressure on Russia. – The Hill

Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 8 signed into law a bill allowing any foreign entity, including those established by state organs of third countries, to be declared “undesirable.”  – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan writes: After all, the Soviets attempted to control and surveil all foreigners’ movements within the Soviet Union, but such an approach would be anathema in any Western democracy. What the West needs is a collective intelligence strategy, and it needs to start now—before a large-scale attack makes calibrated responses far more difficult. – Foreign Affairs

Elena Davlikanova writes: The colonialist and colonized dynamics in Russo-Ukrainian relations complicate reconciliation. Historical examples from former European empires demonstrate that true reconciliation often required the collapse and redefinition of political and social agreements with former colonies, albeit with mixed success. Without such a transformative shift, any cease-fire might only offer a temporary pause before renewed aggression. – Center for European Policy Analysis

Korean Peninsula

A former U.N. official from Canada who now works as a North Korea specialist has been detained in Switzerland on charges of spying, likely for China, media reports said on Thursday, citing unnamed intelligence sources. – Reuters

South Korean officials on Thursday said providing Samsung smartphones to North Korean athletes at the Paris Olympics would violate U.N. Security Council sanctions against the country over its nuclear and missile program. – Associated Press

South Korean authorities on Thursday were questioning a suspected North Korean resident who crossed into the South, according to South Korea’s military. – Associated Press

Widespread flooding in North Korea has not stopped Kim Jong Un’s regime from building fortifications on the country’s contested border with the South, lawmakers in Seoul were told on Thursday. – Newsweek

South Asia

Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus took over as head of an interim government in Bangladesh after weeks of violent upheaval marked by mass demonstrations and a crackdown by security forces that has killed hundreds of protesters, police and bystanders. – Wall Street Journal 

Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will return to her country when its new caretaker government decides to hold elections, her son said, but it was not clear if she would contest. – Reuters

The United States raises the cases of three detained U.S. citizens in every engagement with the Taliban, and securing their release will remain a top priority, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Thursday. – Reuters

The death toll from nearly six weeks of monsoon rains and flash floods across Pakistan has risen to 156, officials said Thursday, as downpours continued in much of the country, inundating some villages and causing landslides. – Associated Press

Europe

As instructors shout commands, dozens of students taking part in a pilot Czech army programme aimed at boosting flagging enlistment numbers crawl through forest scrub carrying combat rifles and learning proper shooting positions. – Reuters

British police remained on alert on Thursday after a heavy security presence, rapid arrests and displays of unity by people across Britain on Wednesday prevented a repeat of widespread rioting involving racist attacks targeting Muslims and migrants. – Reuters

The Mediterranean island of Cyprus is on standby to assist in the evacuation of Europeans and third-country nationals if conflict in the Middle East deepens, officials said on Thursday. – Reuters

An ongoing European Commission investigation into social media platform X could take its handling of harmful content related to the recent UK riots into account, a spokesperson said. – Reuters

At stake is a lush farming valley in western Serbia that holds one of Europe’s richest deposits of lithium, a precious metal that is used to make batteries for electric cars and is crucial for the global transition to green energy. – Associated Press

A wave of disappointment swept over opposition activists in Belarus last week as the biggest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War unfolded and they learned it included none of the hundreds of political detainees who’ve been locked up for years by its authoritarian leader. – Associated Press

Protesters rallied outside Bulgaria’s parliament on Thursday to denounce a controversial legal amendment adopted the day before that bans talk of LGBTQ+ and so-called non-traditional sexual choices in schools. – Associated Press

Tom Rogan writes: The British Army is the closest and most interoperable foreign ally of the U.S. Army. If Germany and other NATO freeloaders spend more on logistics trains and forces built around mass, the British Army and better NATO allied counterparts will have a potent means of fighting Russia. And thus, a more potent means of deterrence. Walker’s strategy of fighting to win quickly will complement the U.S. Army. At the margin, it may also help reduce U.S. Air Force and Navy (and some U.S. Army) requirements in the European theater, freeing up U.S. resources to deter-defeat China. – Washington Examiner

Alpo Rusi and Dennis Mitzner write: Finland should reshape the EU’s Middle East policy to reflect current geopolitical realities. Just as it supports Ukraine, Finland and the EU should also back Israel against terrorism and Iranian aggression. Strengthening ties with Israel will enhance defense, drive innovation, and improve energy security, reinforcing strategic alliances with the U.S. and other democratic partners. – Newsweek

The Americas

The young lawyer warned her followers on social media: President Nicolás Maduro’s security forces were cracking down as she had never seen, even in authoritarian Venezuela. – Washington Post

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday took tensions with social media platform X and its owner Elon Musk to new heights, banning the platform in the South American country for 10 days amid furore over a disputed presidential election. – Reuters

The Mexican president on Thursday rejected a request from Ukraine’s government to arrest Vladimir Putin if the Russian leader defies an international arrest warrant and attends the inauguration of Mexico’s next president in October. – Reuters

Brazil and Nicaragua expelled each other’s ambassadors on Thursday in a tit-for-tat retaliation as relations deteriorated between two formerly allied leftist governments. – Reuters

The government of Paraguay on Thursday effectively ordered the U.S. ambassador to leave the South American nation, escalating tensions between the allies in the wake of the Biden administration’s sanctions on a tobacco company linked to the country’s powerful former president. – Associated Press

Colombian President Gustavo Petro was the target of a possible attack in July, when he took part in a public event in downtown Bogotá, Defense Minister Iván Velásquez said Thursday, without providing evidence or elaborating further. – Associated Press

Editorial: There is a crying need for fresh thinking about how to fight dictatorship in all the ways it is metastasizing and expanding. The free world needs more than just summits, news releases and sanctions, which work very slowly. It is time to start looking for better — and more effective — answers: for a new democracy playbook. – Washington Post

Martin Rodriguez Rodriguez writes: With all eyes on Venezuela, what makes this time different is María Corina Machado’s leadership and a population thoroughly fed up after decades of misrule. While the chances of democracy triumphing may seem negligible, analysts would do well to recognize that Venezuela’s Iron Lady is cut from a different cloth. – The Hill

Cybersecurity

A Nashville resident was arrested Thursday on charges of facilitating a remote IT-worker scheme that funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to North Korea’s illicit weapons program. – CyberScoop

Cyber spies working for Russia’s foreign intelligence service stole internal emails and data on individuals from the British government earlier this year, according to an official description of the incident obtained by Recorded Future News. – The Record

Russia’s Kursk region was hit by a “massive” distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on Thursday amid Ukraine’s surprise cross-border incursion, Kursk state officials said in a statement. – The Record

The United Nations passed its first cybercrime treaty on Thursday in a unanimous vote supporting an agreement first put forward by Russia. – The Record